Cutter's Way

Cutter's Way cannot be overpraised. This movie is a masterpiece of the first order. Ivan Passer, a compatriot of Milos Forman, came to the USA as an experienced Czech movie director. Not unlike Alfred Hitchcock or some German directors 30 years before him, he seems to have made a thorough analysis of the American social conditions and general manners. He then transformed his findings into movies. Two of them I know deal with New York. They are appropriately gritty. The setting of Cutter's way is a Californian beach community for the rich and beautiful – and the movie is appropriately glossy. The whole story takes place in those paradisiac locales. They are presented like an enchanted kingdom, a country of its own.

Under the glossy surface, there is a darker side to the place. There is prostitution, drug abuse and murder. Cutter, living on the fringes of the enchanted kingdom, sees that more clearly than everyone else. He has his own code of chivalry by which he wants to live. He develops conspirational theories and strains to convert them into hard facts. The world around him, populated by indifferent, amoral rich and beautiful people, does not understand him, does not even want to listen, laughs at him. So Cutter mounts a white stallion and rides a charge.

Repeatedly the film slips into surrealistic situations, in which the impression made on the viewers is more relevant than the storyline. This technique was well known in the forties (e.g. in film noir), present day audience are less used to it. In the earlier days of film making, surrealism was created on a soundstage, and the change between reality and "dream" became immediately clear. Passer uses real locations for situations removed from reality – a daring experiment that rewards the viewers with hauntingly beautiful pictures but might also confuse many. The director took this risk and we are rewarded with a magnificent picture about a distinguished slice of America. I predict: Cutter‘s way will one day become an honored classic.

Cutter's Way is one of my most favorite films. The characterization is excellent, the plot is both persuasive and surprising, and the acting is flawless--Lisa Eichhorn, whom I'd never heard of before, in particular. It's a travesty that virtually no one has heard of this film; all I can say is that it is well worth watching, if you can find it at your video store or watch it on late-night TV....

This movie is beautifully shot with a great score that sounds unlike any other score I've ever heard. Then you have a great performance from John Heard and a great screenplay that obviously had a tremendous novel behind it.

If you like those gritty late 70s early 80s California noir movies like Straight Time, Who'll Stop The Rain and Chinatown, this is as good as any of those. I have just watched it and I don't think I will forget it anytime soon. It's packed with memorable moments and fully-developed characters.

They don't make movies like this anymore. It makes me wonder what Jeff Bridges thinks about on the set of Iron Man 2 - I've never been a huge fan but the guy did a string of great dramas in the 80s like Fabulous Baker Boys, American Heart and this. He must be thinking "what happened to all those good scripts that used to be knocking around??"

I stumbled upon this movie at the Nickelodeon on Cape Cod the year of its release...at a time when VCR's and DVD's weren't a part of our culture...when you had to travel to obscure and far-out theaters to see obscure and far-out films during the fading window of opportunity offered as its limited run at the movie house. What a gem. I was instantly riveted by the story and the classic performances that brought it to life. The pathetic human condition personified in Cutter, Bone, and Mo is so exquisitely rendered as to be tragic...only salvaged by the clear-eyed wit and insight of John Heard's Cutter and the tempered and logical cynicism and indifference offered up by Bone(Jeff Bridges)as the balance that only these begrudging friends could provide each other. Lisa Eichorn's character(Mo) exhibits equal measures of the qualities both her male couterparts have and her subtle performance points up the conflict she feels in simultaneously rejecting and craving their opposing energies. The scene where she chews them both out for their selfish and naive plot and their spirited responses seems to spill from their beings as genuine emotion...not written dialogue...and it still sends chills through me...very powerful...and the scene where she is made painfully aware of Bone's incurable drive to bed women as she falls prey to his momentary sympathies ..when coupled with her husband's(Cutter) inability to give a soft refuge to her is so tragically realistic...tears flow. Everyone's shortcoming's cross-up everyone else's and as the surrealistic climax develops its symbolism and power are Shakespearian. This movie works as a crime thriller, a portrait of the underbelly of American culture most evidenced in its loss of confidence and embrace of cynicism that came to the surface post-Vietnam...but most successfully as a great character-driven love story and tragedy.

John Heard has got back from the war (it's not clearly said, but it's obvious it's Vietnam) with a patch on his eye and minus a leg and a hand. He's p-i-s-s-e-d off on the whole world, drinks a lot, and so does his wife. Jeff Bridges is a friend of both of them. He is a witness to a murder right in the beginning of the movie (so pay attention). John, with the deceased girl's sister thinks he knows how to nail who he thinks did it. Jeff doesn't really want to take part in it, you really don't want to see this movie. NOTHING happens. And they try to add a complication near the end, involving a history of a guy we hardly know... I'm sure it's a bad adaptation from the book, I hope so.